id stringlengths 16 16 | title stringlengths 1 203 | author stringlengths 2 40 | poem stringlengths 1 87.3k | labels_l1 listlengths 1 10 | labels_l2 listlengths 0 15 | labels_l1_names listlengths 1 10 | labels_l2_names listlengths 0 15 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
5e5f07424a37836a | Twenty-Third | Christina Pugh | And at the picnic table under the ancient elms,
one of my parents turned to me and said:
“We hope you end up here,”
where the shade relieves the light, where we sit in some beneficence—and I felt the shape of the finite after my ether life: the ratio, in all dappling,
of dark to bright; and yet how brief my stay woul... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S6-3",
"S6-7"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Living/Coming of Age",
"Living/Parenthood"
] |
1582c2e6321d9406 | Prayer for an Irish Father | Norman Williams | On a damp June Saturday, as colorless
As cellar stone, the working classes from
Dun Laoghaire spread their picnic blankets, tins,
And soda bread along the coastal cliffs.
Two hundred feet below, the ocean knocks
Debris and timber on the rock, and near
The precipice, I watch a father swing
His daughter out, as th... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-7"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Parenthood"
] |
e3a14e986cd49d9e | A Word on Statistics | Wisława Szymborska | Out of every hundred people
those who always know better:
fifty-two.
Unsure of every step:
almost all the rest.
Ready to help,
if it doesn't take long:
forty-nine.
Always good,
because they cannot be otherwise:
four—well, maybe five.
Able to admire without envy:
eighteen.
Led to error
by youth (which pass... | [
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S10-9"
] | [
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Sciences",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
a106109c9b86e195 | At the Holiday Gas Station | John Lee Clark | Near the Naked Juices I passed
A man my fingers walking
Across his back he turned and held up
A box said what
Might this be I said oh
You’re tactile too what’s your name
He said William Amos Miller I said
I thought you were born in 1872 he said so
You know who I am yes you’re the man
Who journeyed to the cente... | [
"S10"
] | [
"S10-8"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books"
] |
6b8dd93f94ff0f32 | Breathing | Mark O'Brien | Grasping for straws is easier;
You can see the straws.
“This most excellent canopy, the air, look you,”
Presses down upon me
At fifteen pounds per square inch,
A dense, heavy, blue-glowing ocean,
Supporting the weight of condors
That swim its churning currents.
All I get is a thin stream of it,
A finger’s widt... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-6"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Health & Illness"
] |
2ce47fe19560f4c7 | The Yellow House, 1978 | Maggie Dietz | The kitchen in the house had a nook for eating, a groove
for the broom behind the door and the woman moved through
it like bathing, reaching ladles from drawers, turning to lift
the milk from the refrigerator while still stirring the pudding,
as if the room and everything in it were as intimate to her as her
body,... | [
"S6",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S6-7",
"S8-5",
"S8-7",
"S9-3"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Living/Parenthood",
"Relationships/Home Life",
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship",
"Activities/Indoor Activities"
] |
7e68b74cbfdf6595 | Lifeguard | Claudia Emerson | She perches high on the stand, gleaming whistle
dangling, on her suit a dutiful,
faded red cross. Mine her only life
to guard, she does for a while watch
the middle-aged woman who has nothing better
to do than swim laps in the Y's indoor pool
on a late Friday afternoon... | [
"S6",
"S9"
] | [
"S9-3",
"S9-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"Activities/Indoor Activities",
"Activities/Sports & Outdoor Activities"
] |
f54741014cadf479 | Notched in the Bow of a Wave | Joel Dias-Porter | After she left
the first thing
Ahmad Jamal played
was a bridge:
he fingered water
falling over a cantilever
& made a dark blue truth
transparent.
I try to suspend belief
across a span of hand-
written notes.
At noon, I cross myself
over a painted bridge in Pittsburgh,
sauntering from Station Square
to Smi... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S1-6",
"S6-5",
"S8-1",
"S10-3",
"S10-6"
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"Love",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Arts & Sciences/Music",
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Living/Mourning",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation"
] |
9ef83d9d33e5035a | The Months | Linda Pastan | January
Contorted by wind,
mere armatures for ice or snow,
the trees resolve
to endure for now,
they will leaf out in April.
And I must be as patient
as the trees—
a winter resolution
I break all over again,
as the cold presses
its sharp blade
against my throat.February
After endless
hibernation
on the w... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-3",
"S2-4"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Fall",
"Nature/Winter"
] |
af14b16acf813d7f | Bolero | Gerald Stern | So one day when the azalea bush was firing
away and the Japanese maple was roaring I
came into the kitchen full of daylight and
turned on my son’s Sony sliding over the
lacquered floor in my stocking feet for it was
time to rattle the canisters and see what
sugar and barley have come to and how Bolero
sounds aft... | [
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-1",
"S8-5",
"S10-3"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Music",
"Living/Aging",
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
6dce6a4f85b9d164 | At The Zoo | Alfred Starr Hamilton | On the back of an invoice
I wrote my name in large Capitalist June Blue Letters
And because money was involved
And so was my name ever in jeopardy
On the back of the same invoice
I rewrote my name in large Capitalist June Blue Letters
And in Leopardy and in Jeopardy
I resolved, dissolved upon a radical eradicato... | [
"S3",
"S4"
] | [
"S3-2",
"S4-1"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor",
"History & Politics/Money & Economics"
] |
4ef2218de552e894 | At a Symphony | Louise Imogen Guiney | Oh, I would have these tongues oracular Dip into silence, tease no more, let be! They madden, like some choral of the free Gusty and sweet against a prison-bar. To earth the boast that her gold empires are, The menace of delicious death to me, Great Undesign, strong as by God’s decree, Piercing the heart with beauty fr... | [
"S10"
] | [
"S10-3"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Music"
] |
21d21366b32cb84e | After Oprah | Ruben Quesada | As a kid the only black woman
in my life was my fourth-grade teacher—
I remember her not because she was black
but mostly because of her copper-colored
bob that never changed, as if a piece
of bronze had been chiseled onto her
head and neither I nor my classmates
could prove it was a wig, but we knew it was
too... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S3-8",
"S6-8",
"S8-3",
"S8-5",
"S9-6"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Living/Youth",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Relationships/Home Life",
"Activities/Study & Knowledge"
] |
833463ffe60d393b | In the Theatre | Dannie Abse | (A true incident)
‘Only a local anaesthetic was given because of the blood pressure problem. The patient, thus, was fully awake throughout the operation. But in those days—in 1938, in Cardiff, when I was Lambert Rogers’ dresser—they could not locate a brain tumour with precision. Too much normal brain tissue was destr... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S6-6"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Health & Illness"
] |
6f7b56498b3f844c | The Corn-Stalk Fiddle | Paul Laurence Dunbar | When the corn’s all cut and the bright stalks shine Like the burnished spears of a field of gold; When the field-mice rich on the nubbins dine, And the frost comes white and the wind blows cold; Then its heigho fellows and hi-diddle-diddle, For the time is ripe for the corn-stalk fiddle. And you take a stalk that... | [
"S10"
] | [
"S10-3"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Music"
] |
c32c76fdb4c292a2 | Lost in Translation | Peter Pereira | Before devising, your chicken you do not have to count.
As for the penny which is rescued it is the penny which is obtained.
The girl and the spice has become entirely from the splendid sugar.
The boy has consisted of the tail of the slug and the snail and the puppy.
As for the place of the woman there is a house.
... | [
"S10"
] | [] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [] |
783842cbe7fc18b9 | Brass Spittoons | Langston Hughes | Clean the spittoons, boy.
Detroit,
Chicago,
Atlantic City,
Palm Beach.
Clean the spittoons.
The steam in hotel kitchens,
And the smoke in hotel lobbies,
And the slime in hotel spittoons:
Part of my life.
Hey, boy!
A nickel,
A dime,
A dollar,
Two dollars a da... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S3-2",
"S3-8",
"S4-1",
"S8-5",
"S9-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"History & Politics/Money & Economics",
"Relationships/Home Life",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
9f840830d8c03769 | Kalaloch | Carolyn Forché | The bleached wood massed in bone piles,
we pulled it from dark beach and built
fire in a fenced clearing.
The posts’ blunt stubs sank down,
they circled and were roofed by milled
lumber dragged at one time to the coast.
We slept there.
Each morning the minus tide—
weeds flowed it like hair swimming.
The starfi... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S2-6",
"S2-7",
"S8-6"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Relationships/LGBTQ+"
] |
266c847e5c3e249a | Surprised by Joy | William Wordsworth | Surprised by joy—impatient as the Wind I turned to share the transport—Oh! with whom But Thee, long buried in the silent Tomb, That spot which no vicissitude can find? Love, faithful love, recalled thee to my mind— But how could I forget thee?—Through what power, Even for the least division of an hour, Have I been so b... | [
"S1"
] | [
"S1-3",
"S1-8"
] | [
"Love"
] | [
"Love/Heartache & Loss",
"Love/Classic Love"
] |
ab6652b241f5d22c | The Difficulty with a Tree | Russell Edson | A woman was fighting a tree. The tree had come to rage at the woman’s attack, breaking free from its earth it waddled at her with its great root feet.
Goddamn these sentiencies, roared the tree with birds shrieking in its branches.
Look out, you’ll fall on me, you bastard, screamed the woman as she ... | [
"S2",
"S11"
] | [
"S2-8",
"S11-2"
] | [
"Nature",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Ghosts & the Supernatural",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi"
] |
c2aa0f5431df4e82 | "Jack be nimble," | Mother Goose | Jack be nimble,
Jack be quick,
Jack jump over
The candlestick. | [
"S6",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S9-6",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Activities/Study & Knowledge"
] |
d3f870aa1ed9aa5b | A Boat | Richard Brautigan | O beautiful
was the werewolf
in his evil forest.
We took him
to the carnival
and he started
crying
when he saw
the Ferris wheel.
Electric
green and red tears
flowed down
his furry cheeks.
He looked
like a boat
out on the dark
water. | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S11"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S11-1"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Fairy-tales & Legends",
"Nature/Animals"
] |
d1061e4bfe6ab9e3 | Miss Peach: The College Years | Catie Rosemurgy | I. Pledge Sister
Everyone looks at me as if I’m a rainbow
drawn by a slow child. Because they can eat without
a ringing in their ears. They can ask for gravy.
They miss the point I’m always
aiming at their heads. The pills I suck are like me:
pink, fizzy, and totally legal. They turn listening to noise
into a ty... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S3-7",
"S6-3",
"S9-6"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Social Commentaries/Popular Culture",
"Living/Coming of Age",
"Activities/Study & Knowledge"
] |
5cd776c59dac9a85 | Suicide's Note | Langston Hughes | The calm,
Cool face of the river
Asked me for a kiss. | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-4"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
e1165c1e62c7ac43 | Daylight Saving Time Flies Like an Instagram of a Weasel Riding a Woodpecker & You Feel Everything Will Be Alright | Regie Cabico | The giant Slinky
of Spring approaches& I have nothing
to sport after spending
a fortune on hooded
sweaters that make
me look like I’m searching
for the Holy Grail.
Struggling with
granola & soy milk,
dental bills accumulate
like snow & the potatoes
I forgot have rotted.
I’m broke & broke& broke & broke& br... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S6",
"S7",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-3",
"S1-6",
"S3-4",
"S3-8",
"S6-4",
"S8-5",
"S8-6"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Heartache & Loss",
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Relationships/Home Life",
"Relationships/LGBTQ+"
] |
fbb4be1af89c0f62 | I Genitori Perduti | Lawrence Ferlinghetti | The dove-white gulls
on the wet lawn in Washington Square
in the early morning fog
each a little ghost in the gloaming
Souls transmigrated maybe
from Hudson’s shrouded shores
across all the silent years—
Which one’s my maybe mafioso father
in his so white suit and black shoes
in his real estate office Forty-se... | [
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S8-3",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
f9590df74b8529c8 | On Shakespeare. 1630 | John Milton | What needs my Shakespeare for his honoured bones,The labor of an age in pilèd stones,Or that his hallowed relics should be hid Under a star-ypointing pyramid? Dear son of Memory, great heir of fame, What need’st thou such weak witness of thy name?Thou in our wonder and astonishment Hast built thyself a live-long monu... | [
"S6",
"S7",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S10-6",
"S10-10"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Theater & Dance",
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
0c849fcad496318a | Blind Joy | John Frederick Nims | Crude seeing’s all our joy: could we discern
The cold dark infinite vast where atoms burn
—Lone suns—in flesh, our treasure and our play,
Who’d dare to breathe this fern-thick bird-rich day? | [
"S6",
"S7"
] | [] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [] |
e7b293006d576bcd | When Lucille Bogan Sings "Shave 'Em Dry" | Aimee Nezhukumatathil | I blush quicker than a school of blue jack mackerel
arranging itself into an orb of dazzle to avoid
nips and gulps from the dolphins who’ve been silently trailing them, waiting for them to relax. When I hear
her growl—her scratch-thirst and giggle when she drops swear words pressed to wax—I can’t even look h... | [
"S1",
"S10"
] | [
"S1-7",
"S10-3"
] | [
"Love",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Arts & Sciences/Music"
] |
f5d0d73daab71f4c | Violet | Sylvia Legris | A garland to fend off the dizzies.
A garland to keep the quinsy at bay.
March closes the seeded umbilicus.
April opens the musty secundina.
Equinox the half-melt rot.
Easter the thin asquintable light. | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-1",
"S2-8"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Spring",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi"
] |
05739bc91d55f2a4 | Handed the Rain | Ed Roberson | given to
look into the bowl
of sky
for it to fill
with future
see it turned
upside down on the grass
see the ladle pass
hear the god underneath
calling his inside
the heavenly vault eternal
how that bump
reminds me how we saw it
once
from the underside of
Nut a mother's belly
see dissolve
a... | [
"S2",
"S3"
] | [
"S2-10",
"S3-1"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Nature/Weather",
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life"
] |
54da8fcc16d7a2e0 | The Cloud Corporation | Timothy Donnelly | 1
The clouds part revealing a mythology of clouds
assembled in light of earliest birds, an originary
text over water over time, and that without which
the clouds part revealing an apology for clouds
implicit in the air where the clouds had been
recently witnessed rehearsing departure, a heartfelt phrase
in the p... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S5",
"S6",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-9",
"S2-10",
"S3-1",
"S3-7",
"S5-8",
"S9-4"
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"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Religion",
"Living",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Nature/Weather",
"Nature/Stars, Moons, & Space",
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Social Commentaries/Popular Culture",
"Religion/The Spiritual",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
dd159dddee96d0cd | Christian Bérard | Gertrude Stein | Eating is her subject.
While eating is her subject.
Where eating is her subject.
Withdraw whether it is eating which is her subject. Literally
while she ate eating is her subject. Afterwards too and in be-
tween. This is an introduction to what she ate.
She ate a pigeon and a soufflé.
... | [
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S9-1",
"S10-1",
"S10-2"
] | [
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Architecture & Design",
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
12584b213c82bd42 | The Mothers | Robin Coste Lewis | We meet—sometimes—between the dry hours,
Between clefts in the involuntary plan,
Refusing to think of rent or food—how
Civic the slick to satisfied from man.
And Democratic. A Lucky Strike each, we
Sponge each other off, while what's greyed
In and grey slinks ashamed down the drain.
No need to articulate great r... | [
"S6"
] | [] | [
"Living"
] | [] |
0f20807d32142785 | The Stones | Tomas Tranströmer | The stones we have thrown I hear
fall, glass-clear through the year. In the valley
confused actions of the moment
fly howling from tree-top
to tree-top, quieting
in air thinner than now's, gliding
like swallows from mountain-top
to mountain-top till they
reach the furthest plateaus
along the edge of existence.... | [
"S6",
"S7"
] | [] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [] |
5341cbefbd6bf3bd | A Horse Dies Once That Is a Lie | Rosebud Ben-Oni | Somewhere in kentucky she went for kicksspiked polka-dot mintjulep grade 1 stakes white-glovedclubhouse how-you-do-seesuntil all the horses broke their legs & for all the horses my exjoined the seine-et-oisethoroughbred liberation front & shecrashed all the bentleys & it was I who bledin derby countryside where horsesd... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S6-5",
"S8-1",
"S8-6"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Living/Mourning",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation",
"Relationships/LGBTQ+"
] |
5de997a54e224ecc | Tradition | Lorine Niedecker | I
The chemist creates
the brazen
approximation:
Life
Thy will be done
Sun
II
Time to garden
before I
die—
to meet
my compost maker
the caretaker
of the cemetery | [
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-4"
] | [
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
0ef4e5eeb0177245 | Snowfall | Ravi Shankar | Particulate as ash, new year's first snow falls
upon peaked roofs, car hoods, undulant hills,
in imitation of motion that moves the way
static cascades down screens when the cable
zaps out, persistent & granular with a flicker
of legibility that dissipates before it can be
interpolated into any succession of imag... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-4",
"S2-10"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Weather",
"Nature/Winter"
] |
8edd2b454d95d037 | The cup of Eliyahu | Marge Piercy | In life you had a temper.
Your sarcasm was a whetted knife.
Sometimes you shuddered with fear
but you made yourself act no matter
how few stood with you.
Open the door for Eliyahu
that he may come in.
Now you return to us
in rough times, out of smoke
and dust that swirls blinding us.
You come in vision, you c... | [
"S5",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S5-6",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Religion",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Religion/Judaism",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
edd696739bec2f0f | April 18, 2011 | Richard Katrovas | It is snowing in southwest Michigan.
Such weather is unusual so late.
The trees are squirting buds that advocate
For green profusions that yesterday began
To grunt and poke and strain toward full-blown spring.
Now fleeced, the trees are January stark.
Though clocks, sprung forward, hedge against the dark,
We hea... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-1",
"S2-4",
"S2-8",
"S2-10"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Spring",
"Nature/Weather",
"Nature/Winter",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi"
] |
64c81f83237be2ec | In Memoriam A. H. H. OBIIT MDCCCXXXIII: 7 | Alfred, Lord Tennyson | Dark house, by which once more I stand Here in the long unlovely street, Doors, where my heart was used to beat So quickly, waiting for a hand, A hand that can be clasp'd no more— Behold me, for I cannot sleep, And like a guilty thing I creep At earliest morning to the door. He is no... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-5"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Mourning"
] |
ba816ee13bb04426 | The Ambition Bird | Anne Sexton | So it has come to this –
insomnia at 3:15 A.M.,
the clock tolling its engine
like a frog following
a sundial yet having an electric
seizure at the quarter hour.
The business of words keeps me awake.
I am drinking cocoa,
the warm brown mama.
I would like a simple life
yet all night I am laying
poems away in a... | [
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
ef6739005a9eb54b | The Gilded Zero | Amy King | Only open homes & woods & pansies’ blue ledges
can lead the zero with his only arms
to embrace himself in open fields for all to gape upon.
He unbuttons steel-gray sheets, a knotted top coat,
bares himself, his hole, a vision
as framed by the marker that is
where
his body blew and left enclosure intact,
skeleta... | [
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-2"
] | [
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics"
] |
3bdd664cbf570f68 | A Plagued Journey | Maya Angelou | There is no warning rattle at the door
nor heavy feet to stomp the foyer boards.
Safe in the dark prison, I know that
light slides over
the fingered work of a toothless
woman in Pakistan.
Happy prints of
an invisible time are illumined.
My mouth agape
rejects the solid air and
lungs hold. The invader takes
d... | [
"S9"
] | [
"S9-7"
] | [
"Activities"
] | [
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
ee03561845f5348e | Dust of Snow | Robert Frost | The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree
Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued. | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-4",
"S2-5",
"S2-8"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Winter",
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi"
] |
cd7eb95f4cf35eaf | Grandmother Eliza | Nora Marks Dauenhauer | My grandmother Elizawas the family surgeon.Her scalpel made from a pocketknifeshe kept in a couple of pinches of snoose.She saved my life by puncturingmy festering neck twice with her knife.She saved my brother’s life twicewhen his arm turned bad.The second time she saved himwas when his shoulder turned bad.She always ... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-6",
"S8-3",
"S10-9"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Sciences",
"Living/Health & Illness",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
9eea1fc1a3672c94 | Song to Amarantha, that she would Dishevel her Hair | Richard Lovelace | Amarantha sweet and fair
Ah braid no more that shining hair!
As my curious hand or eye
Hovering round thee let it fly.
Let it fly as unconfin’d
As its calm ravisher, the wind,
Who hath left his darling th’East,
To wanton o’er that spicy nest.
Ev’ry tress must be confest
But neatly tangled at the best;
... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-3",
"S1-7",
"S3-4"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Heartache & Loss",
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
9229a4e1d10c5497 | Wonder as Wander | Sharon Olds | At dusk, on those evenings she does not go out,
my mother potters around her house.
Her daily helpers are gone, there is no one
there, no one to tell what to do,
she wanders, sometimes she talks to herself,
fondly scolding, sometimes she suddenly
throws out her arms and screams—high notes
lying here and there on... | [
"S6",
"S7",
"S8"
] | [
"S6-1",
"S8-3",
"S8-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Living/Aging",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
a53761b49319f075 | Wing Shows on Starway Zodiac Carousel | Mina Loy | Cyclones
of ecstatic dust
and ashes whirl
crusaders
from hallucinatory citadels
of shattered glass
into evacuate craters
A flock of dreams
browse on Necropolis
From the shores
of oval oceans
in the oxidized Orient
Onyx-eyed Odalisques
and ornithologists
observe the flight
of Eros obsolete
And "Immortali... | [
"S1",
"S6"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S6-4"
] | [
"Love",
"Living"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
6c2165144c947936 | Axe Derby | Bonny Cassidy | Never were knuckle-men.
Choked up on planks
of smoke, they haul
towards the peplum: stabbing
back at time, splinters of it
flip like cars. Rolled sleeves,
knees cooked, the rousie
is flirting with her broom, a blonde
with criminal simplicity with
historical truth we can detoxify
a poisoned planet. Now
they’r... | [
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S6-8"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Living/Youth"
] |
5e9ac62596b64963 | In my medicine cabinet | Jack Kerouac | In my medicine cabinet
the winter fly
Has died of old age | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S6-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
3abc1d60359f67ec | Wi’-gi-e | Elise Paschen | Anna Kyle Brown. Osage.
1896-1921. Fairfax, Oklahoma.
Because she died where the ravine falls into water.
Because they dragged her down to the creek.
In death, she wore her blue broadcloth skirt.
Though frost blanketed the grass she cooled her feet in the spring.
Because I turned the log with my foot.
Her slippe... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S3-6",
"S3-8",
"S4-1",
"S6-4",
"S6-5",
"S8-3",
"S8-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Social Commentaries/Incarceration & Justice",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"History & Politics/Money & Economics",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
81daa3fe253a543d | 8 count | Charles Bukowski | from my bed
I watch
3 birds
on a telephone
wire.
one flies
off.
then
another.
one is left,
then
it too
is gone.
my typewriter is
tombstone
still.
and I am
reduced to bird
watching.
just thought I'd
let you
know,
fucker. | [
"S2",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S8-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
b455a12e28809f1f | Shame | C. K. Williams | A girl who, in 1971, when I was living by myself, painfully lonely, bereft, depressed,
offhandedly mentioned to me in a conversation with some friends that although at first she’d found me—
I can’t remember the term, some dated colloquialism signifying odd, unacceptable, out-of-things—
she’d decided that I was after... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S1-6",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy"
] |
792cf7d870300178 | Les Éventails, Portraits of Passion | Nathalie Handal | The shadows of birds fading on a fighter’s back
The undressing of words on an unstamped postcard
The wet swings in the distant park
The jealousy of raindrops on the umbrella of lovers
The laughter of a boy before a bird
The song of two flutes, two swords, two bracelets, two fingers
The stare of a wave before a pe... | [
"S1",
"S10"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S10-1",
"S10-4"
] | [
"Love",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Arts & Sciences/Architecture & Design",
"Arts & Sciences/Painting & Sculpture"
] |
20d2a3117beee270 | The Pillar of Fame | Robert Herrick | Fame’s pillar here at last we set, Out-during marble, brass or jet; Charmed and enchanted so As to withstand the blow O f o v e r t h r o w ; Nor shall the seas, Or o u t r a g e s ... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S7",
"S10"
] | [] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [] |
9867ab2ee930af74 | Constancy | John Wilmot Earl of Rochester | I cannot change, as others do,
Though you unjustly scorn;
Since that poor swain, that sighs for you
For you alone was born.
No, Phyllis, no, your heart to move
A surer way I’ll try:
And to revenge my slighted love,
Will still love on, will still love on, and die.
When, kill’d with gr... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-4",
"S1-9",
"S3-4",
"S8-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Infatuation & Crushes",
"Love/Unrequited Love",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation"
] |
525a38c133313a9b | The Goddess Who Created This Passing World | Alice Notley | The Goddess who created this passing world
Said Let there be lightbulbs & liquefaction
Life spilled out onto the street, colors whirled
Cars & the variously shod feet were born
And the past & future & I born too
Light as airmail paper away she flew
To Annapurna or Mt. McKinley
Or both but instantly
Clarified, c... | [
"S5"
] | [
"S5-4"
] | [
"Religion"
] | [
"Religion/God & the Divine"
] |
2af460e48bbcdcb5 | Book 2, Epigram 4: Ad Henricum Wottonum. | Thomas Bastard | Wotton, the country and the country swain, How can they yield a Poet any sense? How can they stir him up, or heat his vein? How can they feed him with intelligence? You have that fire which can a wit enflame, In happy London England’s fairest eye: Well may you Poets’ have of worthy name, Which have the food and life of... | [
"S3"
] | [
"S3-9"
] | [
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Rural & Country Life"
] |
c02838f5fd2fa852 | Poem for Christian, My Student | Gail Mazur | He reminds me of someone I used to know,
but who? Before class,
he comes to my office to shmooze,
a thousand thousand pointless interesting
speculations. Irrepressible boy,
his assignments are rarely completed,
or actually started. This week, instead
of research in the stacks, he’s performing
with a reggae band... | [
"S6",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-3",
"S9-6",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Living",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Living/Coming of Age",
"Activities/Study & Knowledge"
] |
1767a006604c5cdf | Rain of Statues | Sarah Lindsay | From the Mithridatic Wars, first century BC
Our general was elsewhere, but we drowned.While he rested, he shipped us homewith the bulk of his spoilsthat had weighed his army down.The thrashing stormthat caught us cracked the hullsand made us offerings to the sea floor — a rain of statues, gold, and men.Released from... | [
"S3",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S10-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Painting & Sculpture",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
34eb2001c88964b3 | Idiot Psalm 12 | Scott Cairns | A psalm of Isaak, amid uncommon darkness
O Being both far distant and most near, O Lover embracing all unlovable, O Tender Tether binding us together, and binding, yea and tenderly, Your Person to ourselves,Being both beyond our ken, and kindred, One whose dire energies ... | [
"S5",
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S5-4"
] | [
"Religion",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Religion/God & the Divine"
] |
b54eecf8d4fc71c2 | Sonnet 141: In faith, I do not love thee with mine eyes | William Shakespeare | In faith, I do not love thee with mine eyes, For they in thee a thousand errors note; But ‘tis my heart that loves what they despise, Who, in despite of view, is pleased to dote; Nor are mine ears with thy tongue’s tune delighted, Nor tender feeling, to base touches prone, Nor taste, nor smell, desire to be invited To ... | [
"S1"
] | [
"S1-8",
"S1-9"
] | [
"Love"
] | [
"Love/Classic Love",
"Love/Unrequited Love"
] |
8d535ba1ae48ccac | Spring and All: XIX [This is the time of year] | William Carlos Williams | This is the time of year
when boys fifteen and seventeen
wear two horned lilac blossoms
in their caps — or over one ear
What is it that does this ?
It is a certain sort —
drivers for grocers or taxidrivers
white and colored —
fellows that let their hair grow long
in a curve over one eye —
Horned purple
Dirty... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-1",
"S2-8",
"S6-8"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Spring",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Living/Youth"
] |
eb000490d4e61777 | Making Frankenstein | Wyatt Prunty | He could not, no, he could not, no, althoughHe wheedled and cajoled, begged and promised,But they would not, no, they would notTake him to see The Curse of Frankenstein.Then his uncle called and offered and they caved.
So next it was the matinee then home And nothing said, until he sat through dinner likeSome little ... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S7",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S6-7",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Living/Parenthood",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
2e0e02f0db73cbb4 | Descartes' Loneliness | Allen Grossman | Toward evening, the natural light becomes
intelligent and answers, without demur:“Be assured! You are not alone. . . .”
But in fact, toward evening, I am not
convinced there is any other except myself
to whom existence necessarily pertains.
I also interrogate myself to discover
whether I myself possess any power
... | [
"S10"
] | [
"S10-5"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy"
] |
27b7a8ff30514348 | Common Blue | Melissa Kwasny | Their eggs are laid on lupine. Tiny jade
hairstreaks I could easily mistake for dew.
Too precious. Too incidental,
and besides that, blue, these trills that flounce
in my potato patch, drawn
from dryland origins to the domestic
stain of water from my hose.
What an old woman would study, I think
as you hand me t... | [
"S2",
"S5",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S5-2",
"S6-1",
"S6-6",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Nature",
"Religion",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Nature/Animals",
"Religion/Christianity",
"Living/Aging",
"Living/Health & Illness"
] |
85d3fcd6dcf4cdea | Majolica Lament, or “Australopithecus” | Linda Kunhardt | The farmer in the dellThe farmer in the dellOx chip gastrologyThe farmer in the dellThe farmer takes a wifeThe farmer takes a wifePupa reconnaissanceThe farmer takes a wifeThe wife takes a childThe wife takes a childSweetbread electrolyteThe wife takes a childThe child takes a nurseThe child takes a nurseCheese futz ha... | [
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S8-3",
"S8-5",
"S10-2",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
ebcecbcc988a726c | from Maud (Part XVIII): I have led her Home, my love, my only friend | Alfred, Lord Tennyson | I have led her home, my love, my only friend, There is none like her, none. And never yet so warmly ran my blood And sweetly, on and on Calming itself to the long-wished-for end, Full to the banks, close on the promised good. None like her, none. Just now the dry-tongued laurels’ pattering talk Seem’d her light foot al... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-3",
"S1-7",
"S1-8",
"S3-4",
"S6-5"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Heartache & Loss",
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Love/Classic Love",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
94955f7b031af691 | Now I'm a Woman | Cedar Sigo | When you hear the knives ring
Turn the page.
I wonder why I am not
Myself of late, ridiculous glass edges
Turn back on themselves
And soon reveal
The hand of an apprentice
And godforsaken embarrassing torch,
Stormy back hallways
Out of the black and wooden theatres.
Crystal Waters plus her driver
Plus her en... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-7",
"S6-1",
"S10-3"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Music",
"Social Commentaries/Popular Culture",
"Living/Aging"
] |
85d5b48c76f5475a | I Promise You | John Lee Clark | there’s nothing in my face. There is nothing in yours. What we have are called heads. They are nothing unless we kiss. Lips are wonderful. They are full of mechanoreceptors. In the Old World we all used to kiss and kiss. It was then that we did have faces. We had noses and cheeks and foreheads and soft, downy hair. In ... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S6"
] | [
"S1-7",
"S3-4"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living"
] | [
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
84c1af4de8b74092 | The Soldier | Rupert Brooke | If I should die, think only this of me:
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam;
A body of England’s, breathing... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S7",
"S11"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S6-4",
"S11-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
8dda51f267a02de0 | The Kite | Judith Beveridge | Today I watched a boy fly his kite.
It didn’t crackle in the wind – but
gave out a barely perceptible hum.
At a certain height, I’d swear I heard
it sing. He could make it climb in
any wind; could crank those angles up,
make it veer with the precision of
an insect targeting a sting; then he’d
let it roil in rap... | [
"S2",
"S5",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S5-8",
"S9-5",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Religion",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Religion/The Spiritual",
"Activities/Sports & Outdoor Activities"
] |
c067adf4fb9fbb28 | To the Poet Before Battle | Ivor Gurney | Now, youth, the hour of thy dread passion comes; Thy lovely things must all be laid away; And thou, as others, must face the riven day Unstirred by rattle of the rolling drums, Or bugles' strident cry. When mere noise numbs The sense of being, the sick soul doth sway, Remember thy great craft's honour, that they may sa... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S10",
"S11"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S6-4",
"S10-6",
"S11-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
5cff4993d8695aa9 | Asylum | Sasha Dugdale | For Marina
You say the old masters never got it wrong,But when Goya painted the death of the imaginationIt was a lost dog against a usurious yellow skyAnd the dog, a hapless creature who had drawn itselfTen miles on two legs, stared in amazementTo see the man who once fed him from his plateReduced to this. So I felt ... | [
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S8-5",
"S10-4",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Painting & Sculpture",
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
506daae3bce0a34d | An Ocean Musing | Henrietta Cordelia Ray | Far, far out lie the white sails all at rest; Like spectral arms they seem to touch and cling Unto the wide horizon. Not a wing Of truant bird glides down the purpling west; No breeze dares to intrude, e’en on a quest To fan a lover’s brow; the waves to sing Have quite forgotten till the deep shall fling A bow across i... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-6"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Bodies of Water"
] |
9c77012955c18517 | The Children's Hour | Henry Wadsworth Longfellow | Between the dark and the daylight, When the night is beginning to lower, Comes a pause in the day's occupations, That is known as the Children's Hour. I hear in the chamber above me The patter of little feet, The sound of a door that is opened, And voices soft and sweet. From my study I see in t... | [
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S8-3",
"S8-5",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
28cf96981a4e2539 | ‘Out, Out—’ | Robert Frost | The buzz saw snarled and rattled in the yardAnd made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of wood,Sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it.And from there those that lifted eyes could countFive mountain ranges one behind the otherUnder the sunset far into Vermont.And the saw snarled and rattled, snarled and ra... | [
"S6",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S6-6",
"S9-4"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Health & Illness",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
78ef6b2a215c5f6e | A Grammarian's Funeral | Robert Browning | Shortly after the Revival of Learning in Europe
Let us begin and carry up this corpse, Singing together. Leave we the common crofts, the vulgar thorpes Each in its tether Sleeping safe on the bosom of the plain, Cared-for till cock-crow: Look out if yonder be not day again Rimming t... | [
"S6",
"S7",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S9-6",
"S10-8",
"S10-9"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books",
"Arts & Sciences/Sciences",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Activities/Study & Knowledge"
] |
1e710ba2428cb18c | Dismantling the House | Stephen Dunn | Rent a flatbed with a winch.
With the right leverage
anything can be hoisted, driven off.
Or the man with a Bobcat comes in,
then the hauler with his enormous truck.
A leveler or a lawyer does the rest;
experts always are willing to help.
The structure was old, rotten in spots.
Hadn't it already begun to implod... | [
"S6",
"S7",
"S8"
] | [
"S8-1"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation"
] |
ec0022d92a211752 | A Satirical Elegy on the Death of a Late Famous General | Jonathan Swift | His Grace! impossible! what dead!
Of old age too, and in his bed!
And could that mighty warrior fall?
And so inglorious, after all!
Well, since he’s gone, no matter how,
The last loud trump must wake him now:
And, trust me, as the noise grows stronger,
He’d wish to sleep a little longer.
And could he be indeed ... | [
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-4"
] | [
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
606118e9737812fd | What’s American About American Poetry? | Joshua Clover | They basically grow it out of sand.
This is a big help because otherwise it was getting pretty enigmatic.
Welcome to the desert of the real,
I am an ephemeral and not too discontented citizen.
I do not think the revolution is finished.
So during these years, I lived in a country where I was little known,
With the... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-1",
"S10-2",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life"
] |
692b44b04dad211f | Night's Thousand Shadows | Christian Wiman | 1. deathbed
There is a word that is not water,
has nothing to do with heat or light,
is unrelated to any one pain
though the torn body tears itself further
trying to speak it.
There is a sound
beyond all the sounds that I have made,
the needs that one by one I've tried to name.... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-3",
"S6-4",
"S6-5",
"S6-6",
"S8-7"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Heartache & Loss",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning",
"Living/Health & Illness",
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship"
] |
af2ceea367b7d2b6 | After the Deindustrialization of America, My Father Enters Television Repair | Peter Oresick | My hands hold, my father’s older the wires–
picture rolls once, then steadies… an English castle!
A voice-over drones about Edward I,
who, to subdue the Welsh, built castles.
Some sixty years, dozens of engineers, the masses
conscripted from the villages.
My father moves on to a Zenith
with a bad tuner. TVs inte... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S4-1",
"S8-3",
"S9-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"History & Politics/Money & Economics",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
5a3e7972a7821036 | The Unknown | Edgar Lee Masters | Ye aspiring ones, listen to the story of the unknown
Who lies here with no stone to mark the place.
As a boy reckless and wanton,
Wandering with gun in hand through the forest
Near the mansion of Aaron Hatfield,
I shot a hawk perched on the top
Of a dead tree.
He fell with guttural cry
At my feet, his wing broken.
Then... | [
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S8-8"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Relationships/Pets & Domestic Animals"
] |
86963e49dccba935 | Crossroads in the Past | John Ashbery | That night the wind stirred in the forsythia bushes,
but it was a wrong one, blowing in the wrong direction.
“That’s silly. How can there be a wrong direction?
‘It bloweth where it listeth,’ as you know, just as we do
when we make love or do something else there are no rules for.”
I tell you, something went wrong ... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S7",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-2"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics"
] |
1f625e2cd0d8dc01 | Cool Tombs | Carl Sandburg | When Abraham Lincoln was shoveled into the tombs, he forgot the copperheads and the assassin ... in the dust, in the cool tombs.
And Ulysses Grant lost all thought of con men and Wall Street, cash and collateral turned ashes ... in the dust, in the cool tombs.
Pocahontas’ body, lovely as a poplar, sweet as a red haw in... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S6-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
6ea497480c741aa4 | Rehab | Thomas Reiter | We wear harnesses like crossing guards. In a pouch over the heart, over stent and bypass, a black box with leads pressed onto metal nipples. We pedal and tread and row while our signals are picked upby antennas on the ceiling, X’s like the eyes cartoonists give the dead.Angels of telemetry with vials of nitro watch ove... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-6"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Health & Illness"
] |
fa6e292691b65618 | Painting A Wave | Howard Moss | “Painting a wave requires no system,”
The painter said, painting a wave.
“Systems may get you flotsam and jetsam,
Seaweed and so forth. But never a wave.”
There was a scroll or fine-lined curve
On the canvas first, and then what looked
Like hair flying or grayish nerves,
Which began to move as the painter worked... | [
"S2",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-6",
"S10-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Painting & Sculpture",
"Nature/Bodies of Water"
] |
593f03fbc26f25b9 | sideshow | Danez Smith | Have I spent too much time worrying about the boyskilling each other to pray for the ones who do itwith their own hands?Is that not black on black violence?Is that not a mother who has to bury her boy?Is it not the same play?The same plot & characters? The curtain rises, then: a womb... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S7",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-8",
"S6-4",
"S6-5",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
c4267db260e75bbe | Petition | Dilruba Ahmed | What god will catch me
when I’m down, when I’ve taken
sufficient drink to reveal
myself, when my words are little
more than a blurring
of consonant and vowel?
I’m drunk on spring:
branches of waxy leaves that
greet me at my driveway,
a family clutching
trays of sweets.
How can I sing of this?
If I cannot si... | [
"S2",
"S5",
"S9"
] | [
"S2-1",
"S5-8",
"S9-1"
] | [
"Nature",
"Religion",
"Activities"
] | [
"Nature/Spring",
"Religion/The Spiritual",
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
ce3726090ed27b29 | The Spider and the Ghost of the Fly | Vachel Lindsay | Once I loved a spider
When I was born a fly,
A velvet-footed spider
With a gown of rainbow-dye.
She ate my wings and gloated.
She bound me with a hair.
She drove me to her parlor
Above her winding stair.
To educate young spiders
She took me all apart.
My ghost came back to haunt her.
I saw her eat my heart. | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S3",
"S6",
"S8",
"S9",
"S10",
"S11"
] | [
"S1-4",
"S1-9",
"S2-5",
"S3-4",
"S8-1",
"S9-6",
"S11-2"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Love/Infatuation & Crushes",
"Love/Unrequited Love",
"Mythology & Folklore/Ghosts & the Supernatural",
"Nature/Animals",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation",
"Activities/Study & Knowledge"
] |
b89d61e753837697 | Fox in the Landscape | Leslie Williams | Tulip, you Bled on my green rug. A jungle-red petal Where my little kits Rollick, fallen like a warning— Yesterday I sat outside In the returned sun Trying to make more Friends; after all these years To think of yourself Snapped, the sweet sap Tremoring between States of ice and melt. An old l... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-5"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Animals"
] |
d942d9a63cd77e49 | What Work Is | Philip Levine | We stand in the rain in a long line
waiting at Ford Highland Park. For work.
You know what work is—if you’re
old enough to read this you know what
work is, although you may not do it.
Forget you. This is about waiting,
shifting from one foot to another.
Feeling the light rain falling like mist
into your hair, b... | [
"S3",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S3-2",
"S8-3",
"S9-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
9b7b8cb447580034 | Snake Song | J. Patrick Lewis | Toad gots measles
Frog gots mumps
Both gots such
Disgusting bumps.
They so ugly
It's a sin.
They be jumpin'
Out that skin.
Pay no mind
These creepy items
Close my eyes
I bite 'ems, bite 'ems. | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-5"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Animals"
] |
f7c9d18c849c86fe | The Color Green | Chana Bloch | Two floors up, at the corner of Hearst and Shattuck,
he’s clamped for good
in an iron lung. When it’s time to eat
he nudges his head a sweaty mile
to the edge of the pillow. It takes a while.
His brilliant bloodshot light-blue eyes
steer me from cupboard to fridge:
he would like his chicken burrito
cut into bit... | [
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-6",
"S8-4",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Living/Health & Illness",
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
262bf6af43913665 | In the Meantime | Lisa Olstein | What seemed a mystery was
in fact a choice. Insert bird for sorrow.
What seemed a memory was in fact
a dividing line. Insert bird for wind.
Insert wind for departure when everyone is
standing still. Insert three mountains
burning and in three valleys a signal seer
seeing a distant light and a signal bearer
spri... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S2-7"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
8763c461344a4060 | Grayed In | Martha Collins | January 2009
1
Snow fallen, another going
gone, new come in, open
the door:
each night I grow
young, my friends are well
again, my life is all
before me,
each morning
I close a door, another door.
2
Cloud on cloud, gray
on gray, snow fallen
on snow, tree on tree
on un... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S2-4",
"S3-11",
"S6-1",
"S6-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Nature/Winter",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Living/Aging",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
a0e0ada4d0943fa3 | Languages | Carl Sandburg | THERE are no handles upon a language Whereby men take hold of it And mark it with signs for its remembrance. It is a river, this language, Once in a thousand years Breaking a new course Changing its way to the ocean. It is mountain effluvia Moving to valleys And from nation to nation Crossing borders and mixing. Langua... | [
"S6",
"S7"
] | [] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [] |
986b52ca6167965d | Palinode | Sasha Steensen | O dove, fly to Aleppo with my Byzantine ode
And take my greeting to my kinsman.
–Mahmoud Darwish
Before I was born, I saw a tissue of ingenious detours, an inextricable tangle
wreathed with mistake.
Perhaps the ghost does not limp away, but rather forests flee me, fr... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S7"
] | [] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [] |
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